I grew up in a conservative home where I frequently heard about the problems of valuing children's "self esteem." Today, I live in a world where people often put down millennials by talking about how we all got participation ribbons as children, and somehow that means we all think we're extra special, or something like that.And then I come upon blog posts like this one, titled An open letter to my children: you're not that great: In the row ahead of me a family has taken hot pink duct tape a … [Read more...]

I recently came upon an article titled "We Can't Let the Family Die," via Ladies Against Feminism. After talking about the decline of marriage rates in the UK, the author, Kathy Gyngell, writes the following: The fact remains that children who grow up with parents who aren't married are more likely to experience the double whammy of fatherlessness and disruption. One in two cohabiting couples splits up before their child's first birthday. Exposed to disinterested boyfriends and multiple carers, … [Read more...]

I recently came upon a Huffington Post article titled "Halloween Costumes Are Sexualizing Our Youngest Trick-Or-Treaters." In the article, blogger Raina Dellisle wrote about going shopping for Halloween costumes with her preschool daughter and coming upon these gendered police and firefighter costumes:As Dellisle explains: Halloween costumes that put a sexy spin on uniformed occupations (or anything for that matter) have been popular among women for years, but for little girls? I would b … [Read more...]

When I was in middle school, I briefly tried out the youth group at my family's evangelical megachurch. I was homeschooled, and wasn't used to being around so many public schooled kids, and I had no idea how to fit in or even identify with any of the kids there. But the real problem I ran into had to do with the youth group leader. See, he wanted the kids in youth group to call him Andy*. My parents forbade me from calling him that, and required me to call him Mr. Jones*. And because I refused … [Read more...]

As a parent, I am very passionate about breaking down the gendered rules society expects my children to play by. I decided early on that I would not push my children into gendered play, and indeed, that I would try not to gender play to begin with. In fact, I push the boundaries even in areas like clothing. When my son Bobby was born, I put his older sister's perfectly good outgrown pink baby clothes on him (I would have bought gender neutral baby clothes to start with, but we were given a … [Read more...]

Yesterday I found myself in Target in search of a tablet charger. On the way to the electronics section I walked by the toy aisles. And then I stopped and stared. I knew that Target had decided to remove the gendered labeling from its toy aisles, but there's a difference between hearing the announcement and seeing the result. It was beautiful. Don't get me wrong, the toys themselves are as gendered as ever, but with the plain wood backing the division was less obvious.Some might think this a … [Read more...]

I recently came upon an article by Lou Doench responding to a response by Neil Carter to a comment made by Lawrence Krauss. If you're confused, don't worry! I was too! Basically, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss said that parents who teach their children creationism are committing child abuse.“It’s like not allowing your children to have medicine, not allowing you children to be vaccinated, for example, is child abuse, because you are doing them harm.” “In some sense, if you withhold in … [Read more...]